Calico Review - with Zee Garcia

hey everybody z garcia here today we're going to be constructing some lovely quilts and letting our furry friends play on them in calico this is a very thinky puzzly tile laying game in which you are going to be taking tiles playing them onto your own playing area making patterns basically groups of like colors like uh patterns on those tiles as well as some requirements that the game asks you to complete in order to reward you with victory points get the most victory points you win the entire thing so let's go ahead and take a look at how this works i'm going to show you on the table a quick look at it and i will see you on the other side to set up the game we're going to give each player their own board here and you can see here are the other colors as well as their starting tiles for this overview i'm going to be showing you just the blue players board so i'll set these aside for now we're going to pick three cats over here uh a one a level one a level two and a level three and you can pick either side on these there's also one more here with again two sides and we are going to assign each of these cats to random patterns like this that means that those are the ones uh with which they will score in the game and we'll get to that of course in just a little bit you're going to organize your buttons over here and you are going to everyone is going to draw a couple of tiles from the bag so you begin with a hand of two of these there we go those are going to be mine i'll just set them up here for now we're going to make available three of them so we will display three in a pool from which we will draw and then everyone is going to shuffle their starting tiles here with their kitty cat and their color on the back you're going to take four of those and of those four you will assign three to these starting spots these are a way to score some points uh based on a pattern for example this one here lets us know that if i get a triplet so aaa around this tile and bbb a different triplet around this tile i'm going to score some victory points i'm going to come back to the way scoring works in just a sec but let's go ahead and assign some of these out here like that you can do it however you want to the last one is done the two you didn't draw are also out and we are pretty much ready to begin i do need to add the kitty cat tokens here and then we are good to go the players are going to be taking turns around the table until the entire game is over and you add up your victory points and see who the winner is you're gonna be using this scoring pad here to do so so uh a turn consists of the following two parts first part you're gonna play one of your tiles that you are holding onto any of the empty spots in here put it in like in there like that second part you take one of these add it to your hand replenish the pool from the bag back up to three that's it couldn't be simpler and we're going to be doing that again until the board is completely filled so 22 turns around the table and then we score so let's go over this for a sec so you know we're scoring four there are three things that we are going to be scoring the first one is these objectives these goals and again let's use this one as our example here i'm going to get seven victory points if i have the pattern requested three of one kind three of another now every towel out here works with either color or pattern so yellow yellow yellow uh purple purple purple that works but i can also do the stripes three stripes and then maybe uh three of the polka dot pattern and if you do both then you score the higher number instead of the lower number so instead of seven i would might be able to get 13 if i can do it both ways okay uh each one is going to work that way this is a similar idea this one just means they're all they all have to be different hence it's worth a bit more it's a little more difficult to do so that's the first thing you're gonna score all three of those second thing the cats these three out here tell you what pattern you score with and the required arrangement or size of the group that you need to score that cat so for example let's take a look at the easier one here this is going to give you five victory points for each of these you complete you can do it in either one of these patterns and it simply needs to be a group of four or more connected tiles so once you achieve that you will take one of these cats and you'll put it on one of those tiles you've got that one done all right the next one here needs a specific pattern the next one here just needs a size but it's 11 points so it's quite hard but it's 11 points they all have a back again so these are double sided with a different cat a different pattern and there are two more with two more sides like i said all right and then lastly you're going to score four colors so this is both color and pattern this is pattern this is color with the buttons over here okay and for the buttons you're gonna need a group of three or more tiles connected and once you do that so once i have let's say connected uh this one here and then this one here i am going to be able to score that color and i can put this anywhere now you'll notice that i only added two tiles but i scored a group of three well that's because the ones pre-printed on the outside of the board count so this one over here it would be the third in that dark blue color one two three that gets me that if i continue growing that same group i will not score another button it's three or more just one time but if i do it elsewhere then i will score a button for that if you score one of every kind which is quite difficult you are also going to get one of these rainbow buttons a bonus boat button worth three points in and of itself and you'll put that anywhere you want to all right and that's largely it so you have to balance all of those things at the same time trying to both appeal to the patterns requested by these cute fuzzy cats and get color combinations and make sure you don't ignore the patterns requested by these once you put a towel out there you can play it anywhere you want to you don't have to grow from any one spot but of course your uh possibilities are going to dwindle obviously and uh once it's all complete we'll take a look at the scoring so there you go let me go ahead and show you what this might develop like just playing a little bit by myself so you see what a full board might look like let's remove that and that i'll give myself that as an opening hand and let me just briefly show you uh a sped up look at this going on right here [Music] and that would be it now be aware there is a solitaire mode in this game i did not really just play using it technically if you are playing solitaire every time uh you take a new tile you also remove one from here as uh as described in the rulebook and then you replenish back up to three so you simulate uh one leaving the pool before you get a chance to take it i didn't really do that but just be aware and the solitaire mode works just fine so now i would score so i would score again using the score pad here let's take a look at these three okay this one i did not do uh they're not everything in there is different either by pattern or color so that didn't work out this one i believe i i believe i did do by color so i've got two light blue two of the purple one yellow one dark blue so that one i get five points for this one over here also i did that um i'm gonna have uh oh no i didn't i had to i had to destroy it at the end didn't quite wasn't quite able to pull it off but i almost did it by pattern okay so there we go so far five points then i would add the value for the cats so i've got this one puts me at 12 points and i've got this one here which was very tricky but i did get a large group of that type so i'm at 12 23 now and each of these would be another three points 26 29 32 35 38. i would write that down and see how well i did there you go that's the game and the other cool thing is these boards because they are a two layer board i can do this with and they don't slide out of there how about that isn't that cool so there you go all right let's go ahead and go back up top folks let me tell you what i think of the game the main thing that surprised me about this game the first time i played it is how thinky it is i expected this to be the kind of game that you could gather around the table chat a little bit play a little bit and enjoy yourself and and just sort of more of a social endeavor right this is not really that this is at least for me i did not find it to be a chatty kind of game it's very thinky very puzzly uh certainly could lead to analysis paralysis all of those things that's not to say i didn't like it i think it's a fantastic production very cool game certainly grew on me from that first session i had with it but i think this cover leads you to believe this is going to be a fluffy simple game it really doesn't feel that way it's so thinking and puzzling so let's go ahead and get into it all right i'm going to start at the very top with theme and the theme here is one that doesn't necessarily speak to me and i am getting a little bit um worn down by these uh kinds of themes and by that i mean you're growing a garden or you're putting together a quilt something that's just sort of uh pastoral maybe and and relaxing okay there's a lot of those kinds of games i don't dislike them i also feel they lack perhaps a touch of excitement which i i'd like in my games but and you'll hear me say this a couple of times i think i can also see that while that might not necessarily be for me it's a lovely theme and it is well put together the look of everything on the table is going to be very nice the cats are nice they give you a little information about the actual cats that the images are based on in the back of the rule book over here so you're gonna have some some kitty cats to read about uh it's it's a lovely theme and they it comes through very well aesthetics a plus here they knocked it out of the park the cardboard in this game is some of the best quality cardboard i've seen in a long time uh tiles are thick they're well finished nice linen finish to them these boards are fantastic the the double layer board with the insert so the towels are not going to be moving around you can pick it up and you know basically i'll just about stand it and the towels are going to stay put everything is very high quality printing is bright well done i mean i can't praise the look and quality of this game enough uh from an aesthetic point of view a plus like i said replay value lots of different ways that the game could go and of course that's setup is different so you can pick the different kinds of cats the patterns that go with them will be different all of those things but the way the game develops also is uh will be very different from one session to the next so no problem there i like the replay value here the game arc is interesting yes the game is ap prone um but a game largely kind of feels like playing chicken with yourself it's this idea of holding out until that one tile you want comes up so that you can complete this goal both with pattern and with color and you just keep holding out waiting for that one tile to show up hoping when it does show up nobody else takes it so that's a that's a nice tense feeling um again the game feel is a little slower than i would like a little more ap prone that i would that i would like but i can see the absolute appeal someone who loves puzzles someone who loves uh something that does not feel dreary but allows them to exercise their brain is going to absolutely love this game okay ease of play like i said not a chatty game okay you're gonna be sitting there basically quiet the entire time thinking at least again that was my experience maybe folks brighter than myself will absolutely have no problem chatting it up and playing this game effectively i did not find that to be the case there's certainly a lot to think about and you are trying to have a single tile possibly a tribute to three four different ways of scoring something so where you put those things is very important so the game certainly will slow down at parts you will stop and see all your possibilities somebody who really wants to think through every permutation will slow the game down so be aware of that that's not to say the game is not easy to play the turns are quick and it has that nice ability of like can you do everything do you want to attempt to do everything or do you want to put this purple towel next to the other two and get a button you know you could do that too make up your points that way lastly tactics strategy look lots going on here and again that idea of you can decide how much you go for what thing do you focus on early do you go for the really difficult to acquire cat first gives you 11 points possibly right and if you do it early that means most of the board is open you can try to work that out now yes along the way doing that you're likely to shoot at least one of your goals and you're probably going to hurt some of your button collection but you could do that right or do you go for a lot of little goals button button button button right i mean and maybe this one is easy to complete this one goal around uh that one's easy that's neat and then it allows for long-term goals playing that game of chicken with yourself waiting uh combined with oh there's a quick snipe move i can make and just get some points the whole thing comes together very well so again while i think ultimately this is the kind of game that for me is not my favorite in this style of game okay there are others that of these uh uh sort of lush pastoral relaxing sort of themes with you know quilting and growing a garden or what have you there are other games in that style that i like more i don't know that there's too many of them that are as well finalized as this one and i i think it's just an absolutely beautiful production um i'm gonna rate this one an eight out of ten and that's gonna give it a strong seal of approval i think if you are liking what i'm saying if the game looks good to you if you enjoy that puzzly nature you are going to absolutely have a tremendous time with this game so there you go that is calico lovely production kudos to aeg and the design team for this one uh that's gonna be it eight out of ten like i said my name is z garcia thanks everybody for tuning in i'll see you on the next one [Music] hmm bye

Channel: The Dice Tower

Views: 64,277

Keywords: board game, board, game, dice, card game, cards, catan, monopoly, tower, dice tower, vasel, review, tom vasel, vassel, settlers, gaming, board game review, boardgame, uno, apples to apples, educational games, educational, top 10, GeekUsername: zunyer, uno stacko, board game reviews 2020, dice tower diy, card games for 2 players, calico review, zee garcia, calico game, calico board game review, dice tower calico, board games, zee garcia review, how to play calico board game

Id: QFOGFcZHL74

Length: 16min 56sec (1016 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 05 2020